Wednesday 9 January 2019

Pasts And Futures Different From The Present

Poul Anderson celebrates past times and different kinds of future times. In some speculative futures, technology has been lost so that there has been an unavoidable return to earlier survival techniques as shown by a passage in a work by SM Stirling. In Change Year 47/2045 AD:

"All Mongol girls learned to ride and shoot the bow and use the sword and knife and wrestle..."
-SM Stirling, The Sky-Blue Wolves (New York, 2018), CHAPTER TWO, p. 33.

That sounds physically healthy and maybe wholesome and fulfilling? I prefer the amenities of high civilization and advanced technology, which I am using now. However, we need gyms and exercise to counteract the effects of sedentarism. What would be the optimal life-style, combining physical health with the benefits of electricity and everything else that was lost in the Change? I don't know but I do find that I have asked this question before. See Physical And Mental Activity. This may be one of the basic questions asked by sf. More on such questions soon.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I too would prefer NOT to lose the benefits and amenities of a high tech society. But I am aware that comes with costs, such as the temptation to simply slack off and become fat and excessively sedentary. Which I counteract or prevent by regular, daily exercises. And taking some care over what and how much I eat!

Sean